Young at Heart, Always
by luckbringer
Summary: A little Time Lord boy finds himself stuck on Earth. He can't believe how awful his luck his...until someone comes along and makes his day a little brighter.


**I'll leave it to the reader to decide whether this could be considered "canon". I tried to stick as close to the original story line as possible, but I can't guarantee accuracy (especially on how the Time Lord's age compares to the level of training they recieve at the Academy. If you happen to know more about this subject, please tell me so I can fix it.) Comment if you have time, and enjoy!**

Biologically speaking, the little boy is a 71-year-old Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey of the constellation Kasterborous. In time he will choose to become the Doctor, the man who vows to make people better. He will also acquire many other, less pleasant titles, and he will become a man of many sorrows.

But today, he looks like a seven or eight year old human boy sitting on an empty metal bench in front of an elementary school playground. On Earth, somewhere in London, in the year 1993; nowhere near his home planet. He sits with a straight back from years of strict teachers, but his shoulders are hunched over. His eyes scan the playground restlessly, but he doesn't make eye contact with anyone. Even at a young age he is a restless soul who can never sit still for long.

Unfortunately, that is what he has been forced to do. The boy purses his lips together and surveys his surroundings once more, but with no luck. What did he except to see? A friendly face? His teachers? A convenient portal back home?

The good news is that the young Time Lord knows exactly how and why this day had turned out the way it did. The Gallifrayen tutors, responsible for teaching young-lings the ways of the universe, had decided that a hands-on experience was in order. An educational vacation, as it were. So the older Time Lords had taken their young charges to see planet Earth and observe the primitive existence of early humans up close. This certain young Time Lord had thoroughly enjoyed the experience. He had been fascinated with how similar Time Lords and humans were, and had secretly wondered what life would be like if he lived on Earth. He certainly liked the local cuisine; the boy fondly remembers the taste of that yellow, slender fruit called a "banana".

But what had really intrigued the little Time Lord was the system used by humans to measure Time. Using paper with boxes called "calendars" and spinning disks called "clocks", the humans were able to plot out Time as a strict progression of cause to effect. A straight line that had an unreadable past, a sliver of present, and an infinite future. The boy was still sincerely puzzled by this. Don't the humans realize that Time constantly fluctuates, changing itself to fit into each new moment? Do they know about time travel? Do they even know what a light-year is? He would have asked one of the humans, but the teachers had forbidden them from coming into direct contact with the other species in order to prevent them from messing with timelines.

Naturally, it was this same curiosity that had put the boy in his current predicament. He had slipped through an open door into a small room filled with smelly chemicals and devices used for cleaning. He had seen a clock up on the wall in the room, and he had been determined to figure out how the device worked. But as he had been pulling the clock off the wall the door slammed shut and had locked itself, trapping him inside. He hadn't been worried, though; he had been confident that someone would let him out sooner or later. So he had set to work. After completing his goal (the clock was nothing more than a series of gears, resembling a Time Tot's wind-up toy, much to his disappointment), the boy had taken a short nap. By the time a fat human had unlocked the door and let him out, all of the Time Lord children and masters had gone.

The boy knows himself to be in a bad situation; if not bad, then terrible. His people are probably on Gallifrey by now. There is no way to contact them, and no TARDIS, or any other kind of ship, is available to him. Not that he'd know how to fly it, anyway. The tutors might notice his absence, but the boy had been something of a rebel and a trouble maker in the past. They are probably be celebrating his disappearance. He has a friend who might notice, but it isn't like that friend could do anything about it.

_Rassilon_. The boy curses every locked door in the universe. He vows that if—no, _when_—he returns to Gallifrey he will build something that can unlock any door in this whole dimension.

It is at that moment that, in the middle of his pondering, a girl approaches him. She looks to be six or seven, and wears a cute light-pink dress with tiny flowers on it, and white sandals. Sunlight makes her fair skin shine, and her loose, golden-blond hair bounces and sways with each jump or twirl. The boy doesn't notice her until the girl plunks down on the left side of him on the bench and says, "Hi!"

The boy looks at her quickly, startled out of his reverie. Was…was she talking to him? "Uh, hi," he mutters. He locks his black eyes onto her hazel ones only once, and instantly wishes he hadn't. They are so wide and bright, far too innocent for someone who probably won't live longer than a century.

The girl, on the other hand, stares at the boy without flinching. She pokes his arm and says, "What's your name?"

Uh-oh. The boy knows he isn't allowed to tell just anyone his real name, but he has yet to choose his title and he doesn't know any Earth names. Before the boy can attempt to explain the situation a man rushes past them shouting, "John, get down from there! John!"

That's all he needs. "John," the boy quickly answers. John…he could have had a worse name.

The girl's eyes grow wide. "'John'?" she says, "Your last name wouldn't happen to be…" She leans forward and lowers her voice, like she is preparing to divulge a great secret. Her next words are spoken with reverence. "Smith, would it?"

The boy mentally toys with this very human name and finds that he quite likes it. "Yes, I'm John Smith," he says.

Whatever the boy had committed himself to, it seems to make the little girl happy. She squeals and rocks back and forth on the bench, her eyes squeezed shut as a pink blush creeps up her cheeks. Suddenly she presses closer to him and asks the boy questions at a rapid pace.

"Have you gone on any adventures?" She asks breathlessly, giving the boy no time to respond, "Did you die? Why are you so young? And did Disney get it right? Was there really a Virginia Company? Did you make friends with the Indians? Were you really in love with Pocahontas or was that just acting? Why aren't you blond anymore? Did you dye your hair? Are you his son or something? Are all Americans that selfish? You're staring at me."

At the last abrupt statement the boy blinks and shuts his open mouth with a click. He had lost the ability to speak after the second question. He stammers, "I'm not really from around here…"

"Well, I know that! I've never seen you before!" The girl's accompanying giggle is high-pitched, but musical. "My mum knows everyone."

"Oh," is all he can think of to say. He picks at the sleeve of his Academy robes, uncomfortably aware that the girl is watching his every twitch. What does she expect him to do, spout out the square root of pi?

She suddenly bounces up and says, "If you're new here, then I'll give you a tour. Come on!" She grabs the boy's hand and runs off, dragging him behind her. The boy is at a complete loss as to what the girl means by "tour", but his fingers curl around her hand like the action is a natural phenomenon. A perfect fit! Why, such an everlasting hand-hold had never occurred before, and may never happen again. The boy thinks, I could get used to this.

And the running. He could most certainly get used to the running!

The boy soon discovers that a tour is the same thing as what the masters call "guided exploration". The girl takes him around the perimeter of the playground a total of nine times, ten if he counts the run through the structure proper. Throughout the adventure, the girl supplies personal commentary:

"See that slide?" She says the first time they come near it, "I fell off that last Monday. Wanna see my bruise?" Without pausing she thrusts her free hand towards the boy's face, displaying a purple and blue blotch on her wrist.

"Th-that looks painful," the boy replies, tilting his head to avoid crashing into her bruise, "Shouldn't you go see a doctor? It might be sprained."

"Mum didn't think so," the girl retorts with a defensive edge to her voice, and he drops the subject.

On the third time around, she points to the shadowy area under the play structure and says, "That's the Cave! My friends and I always play Little Red Riding Hood down there." She turns to the boy. "Guess what part I play?"

Naturally, the boy has no idea what she is referencing and simply says, "I don't know. What?"

"The Big Bad Wolf!" The blond girl answers triumphantly. The boy still doesn't have a clue as to what she's talking about and just smiles and nods. How a hood that's used for riding, and happens to be little and red, could be related to a wolf that is big and bad is beyond him.

Then, on the ninth walk/run around the circumference of the playground, the girl slows her speed and pulls the boy closer to her. "See that man?" she whispers, "Over there, by the loo?" The boy turns and nods that yes, he sees the man. He is tall and had short, dark brown hair, and wears a big blue overcoat that goes to his knees. His appearance is dated, but might pass for normal in any time period. The most unnerving thing about him is that he is staring right at them.

"I see him here, sometimes, and in other places, too. Always a different spot, sometimes different clothes, and always watching me. He always disappears before my mum can see him, and he never talks to me." She smiles slightly. "I had wondered if he was real, but you can see him, too!"

The boy nods again, but his "Time Lord senses" are telling him that this girl is partially right. Every now and then, the boy notices little things like this in the back of his mind, a side effect of looking into the Untempered Schism. So he knows that this man isn't supposed to be here. He is a man out of his time. As the boy turns away, he thinks, _Had that been a vortex manipulator on his arm?_ But when the boy turns again to check the man has already disappeared.

The apparent time traveler's sudden disappearance didn't seem to startle the girl. She says, "Let's play!" and drags the boy to the main play structure.

* * *

Later the Gallifreyen boy and the human girl sit across from each other on the highest level of the structure, next to the slide. They sit cross-legged, close enough that their knees touch, and the boy marvels at the sheer simplicity of it all. No lessons, no anxiety, no worries about the past as well as the future. Even the rest of the human children who had been playing had left, leaving them in a bubble of contented silence. But the setting sun is turning the sky orange, reminding the young Time Lord that he should not linger.

"I have to go soon," The girl says abruptly as she plays with the ends of her golden hair, "Mum will get back from the laundry, and then I go to my gymnastics lesson." She pauses and eyes the boy carefully. "You know what that is, right?"

He was tired of constantly asking for explanations, especially after she had rolled her eyes when he had asked her how to play tag. But the boy really doesn't know what gymnastics are, so he shakes his head.

The girl sighs dramatically, but a smile plays across her lips. She is enjoying being the one who knows everything. "Gymnastics is a sport where you tumble and do cartwheels and walk on beams and stuff."

"Why is that considered a lesson?" The boy asks before he can stop himself. Of course, he doesn't really know what a cartwheel is. But to the boy, lessons that teach someone how to walk across a beam seem silly and unhelpful. Where are the algebraic equations, the lectures on gravity's effect on space ships, the heated debates about cyborg rights? He had never gone this long without someone disagreeing with him.

The girl frowns at his question and says, "What do you mean? It teaches you something, doesn't it?"

"Yeah, but not something…" He is reluctant to say "useful".

"Alright, then, what lessons do you have?" She sits at attention now, her arms crossed as she waits for an answer.

The boy isn't usually considered a show-off, but he feels the need to boast just a little about his education to this pink and yellow human. "I had astronomy and navigation lessons yesterday, and tomorrow's flight training and Intro to Quantum Physics. There weren't lessons today because my class and I came here for a hands-on experience."

"Why'd you come here?"

"To study."

"Study what?"

"Human behavior."

"What d'ya need to study that for? Aren't you human?"

Uh-oh. Now the boy knows why his teachers had prevented big mouths like him from communicating with the humans. He ducks his head and mutters, "Well, I mean, you could say that…"

The girl laughs at his fumbling, and he finds himself laughing with her. He surprises himself with the noise coming from his own throat and is instantly shy. On Gallifrey, loud laughter and broad smiles were only appropriate in private.

"I can sing, too!" The girl suddenly says, "Wanna hear?" And before he can say yes or no she jumps up and starts singing at the top of her voice. The song is unfamiliar to the boy, but he finds himself captivated all the same. He has to grip his knees tightly to keep himself from jumping up and singing along with her.

And then he hears it: the soft, melodic thrum that signals the arrival of a TARDIS. He turns, and locks eyes with the tall man now standing on the side of the street. He wears the traditional crowned Gallifrayen robes, which are dyed in such a bright crimson that it puts the surrounding colors to shame. Next to the Time Lord is an oddly-placed, unusually large trashcan.

The girl has stopped singing and openly stares at the oddly-dressed man on the other side of the street. "Who's that" she asks.

The boy sighs. "That's my teacher," he says, standing, "I have to go."

The human girl nods and replies, "Yeah, me—"

She is cut off by a woman's voice calling out, "Rose, come on! Before we're late!" The pair turn and see a blond woman approaching the play structure.

"Coming, mum!" The girl named Rose shouts. She smiles sadly and says to the boy, "Bye, then."

"Rose…" The boy says dumbly, testing the word on his tongue. It rolls off easily, like it's meant to be there.

Before he can say even a simple good-bye, Rose says, "You come back soon, okay?" She smiles that cute smile of hers and disappears down the slide. The boy watches as she runs to her mum, but she doesn't look back as she walks away. Just like that, the little pink and yellow human named Rose, with her bruised wrist and wolf games and cartwheel lessons, is gone.

Without another word, the Time Lord boy slowly climbs off the play structure and makes his way across the clearing. When he nears his teacher, the other man abruptly turns and strides into the side of the trash can. Another young boy already stands in the door frame, watching his friend and absently tapping a four-beat pattern on the edge of the trashcan. Together they step into the disguised TARDIS, and soon the trashcan seems to disappear as it enters the time vortex.

Many years will pass, and only on occasion does the boy remember the girl named Rose. Once the boy (now called the Doctor) finishes the lessons at the Academy he deems necessary he will fly off with his granddaughter in a stolen TARDIS. He will run across the universe and all through Time, and he will make new friends and new enemies. He might even save a planet or two.

He will never give any serious thought to the blond human who had kept him company all those years ago. But after nine regenerations and the horrible events of the Time War, the Doctor's only wish is to see a friendly face.

And maybe a part of the Doctor's mind did remember her. Because soon, he will see a blond woman in the basement of a London department store, getting attacked by plastic mannequins. He will grip her hand (a perfect fit), and will say one word:

"_Run._"


End file.
